Food Heritage Communities Series:

Guerande Peninsula
France's Historic Salt Industry and More

Excerpted from Gastronomie! Food Museums and Heritage Sites of France,
by Meredith Sayles Hughes and Tom Hughes of The FOOD Museum:

You can't eat the bright white light out in the Marais Salants, the salt marshes of the Guerande-- from the Breton Gwen Ran, or "white land"---though maybe it's bottled up in the flashing bubbles of the champagne you drink as you sniff the salty sea essence of the local oysters, before slliding them down the throat. The houses here are white or pastel, the sun bounces off the flats with a not unpleasant glare, and even the salt workers themselves, traditionally at least, wear white breeches.

Salt is not just a happy condiment, it is an essential life ingredient, and the primary means of preserving both food and drink before refrigeration. To the Romans it was one more good reason to invade Gaul. In the sixteenth century the insidious salt tax extended to the western parts of France, causing active revolts. According to French food historian Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, the rabble of Bordeaux evidently grabbed the bureaucrat who administered the tax, cut him up, and salted his parts, much as they would have ministered to a fattened pig. And by the time of the Revolution, the then centuries-old salt tax, mixed with famine after a poor grain harvest, was a further incitement to overthrow the aristocracy, who, naturally paid no salt tax.

Salt, too, we discovered not only has color---gray salt is the most reminiscent of the sea---but also perfume. Experts can apparently sniff out the difference among salt from mines, salt of the sea, sea salt skimmed first from the surface of the flats, and salt from below, slow to appear after evaporation. My nose for salt was sadly undeveloped, though a faintly brackish, slightly geranium-leaved aromatic scent did begin to take vague olfactory shape.

A remarkable union of three separate salt-related institutions comprises what we would call a salt museum, perhaps the finest in the world.

Terre de Sel, or The World of Salt, in the town of Pradel

Seasons of the salt workers display

This is an enterprise begun by a cooperative of salt producers, out in the flats, with a black-painted hanger of a building that could not have provided a better introduction to the subject. While the local story of the seasons of the paludiers, the salt workers, is their primary focus, you also can observe the differences between salt from Greece, Austria, Djibouti and Japan and perhaps for the first time discover that salt, too, has perfume.

Salt evaporation ponds

June to September is the season of the hand-harvesting time here, with wind, rain and sun itself the enemy. From the building's balcony you can see out over the flats and take walking tours, either with a naturalist or a salt worker, by prior arrangement with the cooperative. A well-stocked shop sells the wares of the co-op members.

Musee des Marais Salants, Batz sur Mer

One of the oldest folk art museums in Brittany, set up in 1887, this is the second in the trio of salt-related museums. It relates the archaeological history of salt production. The Gauls used to boil away the salt water with fires in the first century, and from the ninth century monks of the Guerande were working the flats. The museum also introduces the everyday life of the paludiers who labored with salt in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The people of old Batz are here, in their vivid lilac and red outfits, always worn over white, and the men's handsome yet almost absurdly huge dark hats. Their homes always featured heavy, carved furniture colored blood red, sang de boeuf, a term meaning "oxblood" in French.

Salting pork

Each kitchen held a huge clay pot containing at least one, sometimes two pigs preserved in salt. Inside the huge fireplace were benches whose cavities stored salt, and an unusual triangular wood porte-chaudron held the cooking pot from which people ate. Every household, too, valued its cache of salted sardines.

Maison des Paludiers, Saille

Working model of the salt production area

The ecological, natural, meteorological story of salt is here--introduced by a brilliant film that shows humans as the salt-dependent sea creatures we once were. Salt still flows naturally in our bodies, hence our continuing daily need for it, especially in our brain and kidneys. The animated film goes on to recount the role of salt throughout history.

We discussed global warming and the coming ice age with the guide, whose parting words were, "Ah well, better to live with enthusiasm than with fear." And a pinch of salt.

Maison de la Mytiliculture, Trehiguier

The local "farmers of the sea" raise mussels, a tasty alternative to oysters, and a product of this town since the nineteenth century. The mussels are raised on nets extended between stakes, or buchots, a method of farming said to have originated with an Irishman named Patrick Walton, shipwrecked near La Rochelle in 1235. But again, the industrious Gauls were probably raising mussels in beds well before that. This exhibition in an 1881 lighthouse on the history and methods of local mussel farming will send you racing to the nearest bistro for moules marinieres with frites, a delectable dish also a favorite of the Belgians, mixing dry white wine, garlic, shallots and the freshest of plump mussels.

Le Moulin de la Falaise, Batz sur Mer

If you had a Euro for every French place name that begins with moulin, you would be very rich indeed. The Babylonians pumped water using windmills about 4,000 years ago, but the use of wind power to grind grain came later, and may not have reached France until the eleventh century. Under the creaking arms of this restored sixteenth-century windmill, near the sea where the wind almost always blows, you can buy the freshly ground organic buckwheat flour of the miller himself, Xavier Phulpin. His recipe of flour, Guerande salt, and egg and water, well stirred, makes fine galettes.

Biscuiterie des Marais

If you want to satisfy your food history needs while you shop, this is the place. You can examine the Biscuiterie's huge collection of Breton antique biscuit tins, as well as buy authentic tools used for making galettes, and any of a zillion different salts and salt holders, as well as biscuits.

Espace Escargots, Le Croisic

Before they hit the butter and parsley, snails lead a pleasant life. You can observe them through windows at this snail farm, view a film all about snail raising, and then, taste.

Links

Musee des Marais Salants

Terre de Sel

Maison des Paludiers

Fleur de Sel Guerande boutique

About salt